“Yes, it’s a blessing and a curse. The tourists make it all interesting though,” Abby told her and while she had noted the change of subject she didn’t bring it up again. “What would you do with the store if I let you have it?” she asked instead.
Amy had seen the other stores in town and noted what they lacked, touristy items were fine and they were well supplied in the other stores. She herself would carry…some. But she wanted a little more than that and began to discuss it with Abby who proved to be a good listener and nodded as they ate their carrot cakes, apparently Tasha had baked today.
“Wow, it sounds like you know what you are talking about,” Abby said as she finished the last morsel of her cake and the delicious icing.
Amy nodded. “My parents had a small fishin’ place on the Gulf when I was growing up,” she confided and then blushed.
“You didn’t want to work there?” Abby asked noting the blush on the redheads face.
“They passed away and the bank and my brother sold it before I could say yes or no,” she told Abby and looked away.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Abby found herself apologizing again and for some reason it irritated her.
Amy looked up straight into those soft velvety brown eyes. She had been more forthcoming with this woman and she didn’t know why. “They were old; they had me and my brother late in life but in the end it didn’t matter as neither the bank nor my brother got the proceeds after my Grandmother’s lawyer stepped up. It all went into a trust.” She grinned ruefully and shrugged at life’s intricacies.
“You seem to have had a lot of loss in your life,” Abby commented as she finished her chocolate milk. It left a cute little moustache on her upper lip.
Amy resisted the urge to blot at the brunette’s upper lip as she pantomimed it for her dinner companion to make her aware of it without embarrassing her and then watched amused as she wiped her lips clean like a child would with the back of her hand. “It’s just…life. It doesn’t always play fair.”
Abby had to admit that was certainly true.
“Would you ladies like anything else?” their server came up with separate bills which he handed each of them.
“I’m good,” Abby said as she glanced down at her check.
“It was delicious,” Amy said with a courteous smile and he nodded and stepped back.
“Why don’t I get this?” Abby asked her reaching for Amy’s check.
Amy looked up startled at the offer. “Why would you do that?” she asked.
Abby seemed surprised that she would question her offer. “Why not? We spoke about business, I could write this off.” She grinned at the idea.
Amy shook her head. “Thank you but no, perhaps another time and if you are serious about sellin’ me your store perhaps we could do this again?” she offered hoping to couch her refusal.
“Why don’t you come by the store again tomorrow, I’ll be…around. We could discuss terms that would be agreeable to both of us. I like your ideas and I think you’d be successful at it. I’d like someone to succeed at it; God knows I have no interest.”
Amy nodded as she slipped a twenty dollar bill into her hand from her purse. They rose from where they were seated and headed to the cashier together. “I’d like that, perhaps we could have Lenora draw up some of the papers so she doesn’t feel left out?” she suggested.
“You’ve already got her number don’t you?” Abby said astutely as she watched Amy pay her bill and then catching Mike the server’s arm as he walked past she handed him a five dollar bill.
“Thank you ma’am,” he said blushingly. Most people left the tips on the table but he kinda liked the opportunity to thank her personally.
They walked out into the brisk early fall night and Amy pulled her jacket closer. The air was so clear you could almost drink it and she breathed deeply in appreciation of it.
“You look like a hound dog smelling the air like that,” Abby teased as they walked along.
“Could be worse things that I look like. Daddy had a good pair of coon dogs,” she answered with a laugh as she pressed the button on her key ring and unlocked the door to her new SUV.
“This is yours?” Abby asked in surprise. Her car was parked alongside. She noted that the vehicle still had the dealer plates on it. If it wasn’t brand new it was only recently old, it was a Mazda CX-5 and looked sharp. She gazed at it enviously.
Amy nodded proudly. “Yes I bought it yesterday, I knew I’d need a good sturdy vehicle for the winters up here and to get in and out of the cabin I rented.”
“It got four-wheel drive?” she asked as she nearly drooled over the modern SUV.
Amy nodded again. “Yep and all sorts of gadgets I’m gonna have to get used to.”
Abby nodded wondering how much the SUV had cost her and smiled ruefully. A new SUV was far in the future for her and her children, in the meantime she had her cruiser. She watched as Amy got into the SUV and it smoothly started for her. “Hey, you might want to get a remote starter for it,” she suggested to her new friend.
“Already got it thanks,” Amy said with a grin. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She waved as she closed the door and slowly backed out of the stall. She didn’t notice that Abby was getting in the cruiser that had been parked next to her own SUV.
* * * * *
Amy spent a very cold night in her cabin. Without the fire, without the electricity, it was rather spooky. She slept in fleece sweats and wore socks and was grateful for the foresight of purchasing the thick, warm sleeping bag. The blow up mattress made things comfortable but noisy as she tossed and turned. She heard noises she knew had to be branches against the cabin but she worried that perhaps it was animals in the walls or the floorboards. She was tired and finally fell asleep though. She woke up cold and snuggled deep in the sleeping bag. The air felt frigid and she could feel the cold trying to seep into the sleeping bag from the air mattress. There was no thought of getting out of bed into that cold. She was already not happy with her new abode. Camping out was way over rated if this was what it was going to be like. Still she finally got herself out of ‘bed’ and got going if only to get the blood flowing and to pee. She moved quickly to get dressed, to warm herself and get herself out to the warmth of her SUV which she started fifteen minutes before she even got outside. Thank God for the remote starter! She watched it warming up as she brushed her teeth and then her hair, using different brushes of course.
When she first slid into the warmth of the SUV along with a warm jacket, gloves, and even a hat, she sat there for a moment to let the heat seep into her bones. She couldn’t remember ever being this cold before and wondered at her decision to settle here. It wasn’t even winter yet and here she was already frozen to the bone. Well, sitting here wasn’t going to get her heat on, her chimney cleared, or her house clean. She put the SUV into drive and drove into town. After a small breakfast at yet another little touristy café, and a meeting with Abby that got them a tentative agreement which they sent over to a delighted Lenora, she spent most of her day running around from pillar to post trying to find the electric company, the phone company, even a cell company, as well as tracking down one Jacob Meyers who not only took her order for six cords of wood gladly but agreed to check out her chimney for her.
The mess that Jacob made ‘cleaning’ out her chimney meant she should never have bothered to sweep out the cabin in the first place. He cleaned out bird’s nests and other debris that had accumulated in the chimney and that along with the soot meant her cleaning in the cabin would have to be repeated. Watching him ‘clean’ the chimney it occurred to her it was not a job she would have relished or wished on any other human being. She could only hope his delivery of the cords of wood would be a ‘little’ neater.
The cleaning signified another aspect of her isolation though. She was going to have to add to the list one of those ‘thingies’ to shed rain and keep out the birds and any other animals that decided to use her chimney as a entranceway to the cabi
n. The old one had apparently rusted out and Jacob removed this along with all of the other debris. Amy was just glad it was all gone. She was also glad when Jacob too was gone to go get the first cord of wood she had ordered, he had explained he would deliver them all as soon as possible and stack them along the side of the cabin where she already had a partial cord. Six cords though would soon take up more than that area and he recommended stacking them along the back too. Not knowing the significance of that she agreed.
Having that first fire that drew out the smoke through the now cleared chimney was heartening. It quickly warmed up the cabin which delighted and surprised her at its efficiency. She wondered if she had ordered too much wood, after all how much was a cord of wood really going to take up? She found out as she cleaned up the cabin once again, the soot seemed to have gone everywhere and she again found herself scrubbing and washing down the woods. She watched as Jacob and a ‘helper’ who he introduced as his brother Jonathan, both of who eyed her appreciatively as they stacked the wood. One cord seemed like more than enough for winter but she would soon realize how much six cords took up in the area around the cabin as they delivered cord after cord and stacked them neatly.
When the phone company finally showed up to turn on her phones and then the electric company to turn on her electric she finally felt ‘settled,’ it took a couple of days but the cabin shined as she scrubbed and cleaned and fussed. She had discovered in her scrubbing down of the cabin that the floor in the kitchen contained a trap door to a small basement, something that Lenora had failed to notice or mention. She also discovered that the floor was rotting above this death trap and she spent hours poking and prodding and determining how much wood she would have to replace. Checking her agreement once again she saw any and all ‘improvements’ were the area of the tenant which meant her ‘landlord’ wouldn’t be fixing it any time soon. Well if she bought this place it would be to her benefit to fix these things. She added to her notes on her endless lists.
She finally got around to checking out the ‘garage’ that was behind the cabin. It was big enough for her SUV which when she tried to fit it inside she found it took up almost the entire side of one part of the small garage. There was room for a second small vehicle but she was glad she hadn’t bought a bigger SUV or it would have overwhelmed the small garage. She swept out the dirt floored garage only to find a concrete slab well below what she thought was simply a dirt floor. It took her hours to ‘shovel’ out the accumulated years of dirt and debris that people had left on the garage floor, making it a ‘dirt’ floor until she found the whole slab. She supposed other tenants had thought it was dirt too and had never really cleaned as thoroughly as she. She found herself wiping down the walls as she had inside but not washing them as she had polished those in the house. She couldn’t reach all the spider and cob webs in the upper portions and added a garden hose to her endless lists of supplies to pick up in the ‘big’ city.
The delivery of her bed and mattress as well as her living room set delighted her. She hadn’t wanted to miss these and it gave the cabin a homey look. She delighted in deflating the air mattress and folding it neatly away and rolling up her sleeping bag as she made the bed with the sheets she had purchased that first day. She realized she didn’t have a comforter or any blankets and had to unroll her sleeping bag again, unzip it and spread it as a quilt across the queen sized four poster. So much for progress she smiled ruefully.
She was grateful for the electricity though after cleaning so much she was able to take a hot shower in her small bathroom that was between the two bedrooms. She had hung her few clothes in the closet of the ‘master’ bedroom and now with her bed in it, it felt cozy. The fireplace really put out a lot of heat and warmed the cabin nicely. Her first night spent in her bed felt luxurious even though the inflatable had been comfortable if a bit noisy. She still heard ‘noises’ at night and wondered if she had ‘roommates’ that were better left alone and unseen.
She was planning on going back down to Green Bay and perhaps on to the Fox River Mall in Appleton that she had heard of. One day as she sat in her living area on her new couch making her lists and checking them a second time someone knocked on her cabin door. She was surprised as she hadn’t been expecting anyone.
“Why Lenora, this is a surprise,” she said as she welcomed the realtor in.
“I brought the agreement over as soon as I finished drafting it, I didn’t want to give Abby a chance to…” she stopped talking as she looked around the now swept and polished cabin as she walked in. She could see all the hard work Amy had put into the building. It was a far cry from the ‘hunting’ cabin she had rented the woman originally. She could see she had wiped down, possibly washed the walls as well as the wood floors. Even the stones on the fireplace seemed polished. White paint around the stones made them stand out in contrast to the river rock. With the warm wood of the logs it looked warm and cozy and lived in. She had a small dining room set to one side and with the couch set it looked lived in and habitable. She could see the four poster bed neatly made up except for a sleeping bag spread out on it through the doorway. The other bedroom door was closed. “Why this looks very nice,” she said approvingly.
“Sit down, sit down, I’d offer you coffee but I don’t drink it and I’ve not got a refrigerator yet,” Amy said with a welcome.
“Oh that’s okay, I’m glad you are settling in, you are very efficient aren’t you?” she said with a delighted smile as though she had picked Amy herself for the job.
Amy just smiled as she gestured at the papers Lenora had with her. She read through them thoroughly much to the realtor’s annoyance but she found a few errors from what Abby and she had agreed to and tagged them with post-it notes that Lenora reluctantly handed her so it could be corrected. It took longer to read through it all because Lenora obviously wanted to chat and Amy insisted on reading it through. “I’m so glad you are taking over that run down store, Abby really has no time for it,” Lenora confided after she was finished perusing the contract.
“Well, I’m going to make it my home here, and Abby’s store will give me a purpose,” Amy told her with a smile. She had heard the annoyance in Lenora’s voice and wondered at it. She wasn’t about to ask the reasons why though.
They soon concluded their business and as Amy was ready to go out on her own errands she followed the realtor outside with her purse, keys, and endless lists. Lenora watched as she carefully locked the door behind her and then watched as Jacob Meyers and his brother drove into the yard with another truck full of wood.
“That’s an awful lot of wood,” she commented curiously, but she had known the only heat source in the house was the fireplace.
“Yes Jacob and his brother are still deliverin’ all I ordered,” Amy told her without elaborating.
When Amy was obviously not going to comment further or appease any more of Lenora’s curiosity she waved to the two men unloading the wood and Amy watched as she drove away.
“Hi Amy!” the two men waved as they neatly stacked the wood in the back of the cabin, the side had been filled by only a couple cords and now they were stacking it along the back.
She waved in return as she headed out to the garage to get her SUV. People sure got an early start on their work around here if Lenora and Jacob were any indication. It was still early in the morning; she’d had a bowl of cold cereal but was looking forward to getting a refrigerator in the cabin as well as a stove and other appliances so she could cook at home instead of going out once or twice a day. While it was nice to eat out, it was expensive, and she saw a lot more tourists than her fellow people from town although she was learning the places that the townies hung out.
She thought about her chosen place to live as she drove south to Green Bay. She was loving how remote it was. Homey. The trees and the lake were beautiful and she even loved the crisp fall-like air as she sniffed eagerly at the smell of wood smoke and other fall smells. She was excitedly anticipating putting the store togethe
r and wondered how Abby would feel about the changes she was going to enact once their contracts were in order.
“Oh yeah, I guess I forgot to tell you about that clause,” Abby said as Lenora showed her the changes Amy had indicated on the contracts. She was deliberately re-reading the contract slow as she knew it would annoy the realtor. It was a land-contract and would allow Amy to buy the store and building over time. Lenora wouldn’t get her ‘commission’ until she did buy it but she would get one as she was handling the contract. It annoyed her as she wanted her monies now but she could at least gloat about the sale ‘she’ had enacted. It was still a feather in her cap even if she didn’t get paid for it right away. Abby suspected she just wanted to annoy her in some way and didn’t really care. Amy seemed nice, she seemed knowledgeable, and while she was a study in contrasts she really thought her ideas for the store were sound and would fit in well in their little town. She wondered about her of course as any new additions to their town would engender curiosity, but there was a lot that the redhead didn’t say and Abby respected her privacy.
“You should see how she cleaned up that cabin, it shines now!” Lenora enthused as Abby read through the notes Amy had made.
“She seems to be a go-getter, I’m sure she will be a welcome addition to the town,” Abby said absentmindedly as she read over some of the legalese.
Lenora’s eyes narrowed slightly wondering at Abby’s seeming lack of interest in their new resident but then shrugged it off as Abby initialed the changes and handed back the contract for Lenora to finish making it up. “Do you think she will begin on the store right away?” Lenora asked. The two women had excluded her from their negotiations but at least they had done the ‘right’ thing by including her in the paperwork, after all she had been the one that introduced them. It was only ‘right’ that she get her commission.
Abby shrugged, she knew it would annoy Lenora that she wasn’t more forthcoming with the information that she and Amy had discussed but she wasn’t about to gossip or carry tales. Lenora however would. She was certainly aware that Lenora didn’t approve of her or her lifestyle but it was none of the busybodies business. She smiled politely as Lenora promised to have the contract done for her signatures that afternoon. She watched absentmindedly as the woman drove away even though it would have been just as quick to walk in the small town.
Small Town Angel Page 3
